Literally, You, me, the air we breath, the water we drink, the sand under the feet… everything around is the same stuff. The same. Of course we are slightly different in configuration of the same stuff, tiny different in data. That’s all we are. Yet a lot of folks wish to be very special and different from each others. Yeah, different culture, traditions, language, etc, etc…somebody would say. I just wonder how many years we still away from changing ours mind sets and start to behave like real Earthlings. Become a real intelligent species.profound truth…
lets focus from 25:40
Does anyone think we have a chance to become an intelligent species ? Type I civilization ? Or is it just an illusion (wishful future) ?
Have a nice day
p.s. “Space” category was chosen on purpose. Why space ? Cause we are the space. At least a tiny part of it.

My thoughts may seem a little bit foggy and unclear. Even jumping “slightly”. Why i had started this topic at all?
Lately we are very focused on back to Moon, human on Mars…even base or colony on another celestial body. Dreaming to become an interplanetary specie. Usually we are talking about funding, space industry and technologies aspects. But we often forget about the third main ingredient. That’s ourselves. More precisely our way of thinking and behavior. So it’s seems to me that proper funding and technology is not enough if we wish to become an interplanetary specie.

So it’s seems to me that proper funding and technology is not enough if we wish to become an interplanetary specie

Indeed the will and drive has to be there to invent / use the technology and raise and of course spend the funds. The spend the funds seems to be an issue with agencies putting huge resources into projects only to have governments change focus forcing cancellations or budget over runs. This is where I see commercial interests helping. Without needing government approval they are free to spend their time and funds directed to where they see the need and then achieve their goals without risk of sudden government interference … However of course financial obligations/interference is still and issue.

So it’s seems to me that proper funding and technology is not enough if we wish to become an interplanetary specie.

Thx for the link. Love me sum Ferguson, his was the only US late night show i’ve ever really enjoyed.

I do think funding and tech are the main problems.
That’s not to say we’ll just fuck off to another planet when we ruin this one

No other planet in our solar system is even remotely as human-friendly as earth - even accounting for the worst case scenario of the climate problems we’ll have in the future.

Moving billions of people from one gravity well to another is a non-starter. It’s not going to happen.

But… while we do have the technology and funding to reach other planets nearby, we should use it, and ideally set up colonies that can become self-sufficient in the near future. That same tech would also prove extremely useful in cleaning up our own home planet.

No other planet in our solar system is even remotely as human-friendly as earth - even accounting for the worst case scenario of the climate problems we’ll have in the future.

Moving billions of people from one gravity well to another is a non-starter. It’s not going to happen.

Yeah, that’s true. It’s hard to argue these statements. However it is not so hard to turn Earth to Venus in a few hundreds years or even sooner.
And Tim is right as well

M0THM-Tim_McConnell:

This is where I see commercial interests helping. Without needing government approval they are free to spend their time and funds directed to where they see the need and then achieve their goals without risk of sudden government interference … However of course financial obligations/interference is still and issue.

without private participants we probably wont be able to create colony on other celestial body. And government interference to these activities will be an issue. I would say a BIG issue. What the hell will be when SpaceX will try to certified BFR for carrying human. And how long it will take to get it.

More or less my point was related with scientific literacy and skeptical mind. That’s the key to survive in a long term for our civilization. And we must develop scientific literacy and broaden it. To use skeptical mind in all our lifetime. It’s like to go to a gym for your body health(or other physical activity). The same with your mind.
And You know what? Your job cant be overestimated. The show and TMRO’s community is so great. Show itself and folks from community is so helpful to develop skeptical mind set and broaden scientific literacy. Yeah, You can call it some sort of education, VERY important education.
Thank You all so much.

However it is not so hard to turn Earth to Venus in a few hundreds years or even sooner.

Actually, I think boiling away Earth’s oceans is beyond anything humanity can currently do. You have to remember that Venus’s sun up to sun down period lasts 56 earth days. That’s 1300 hours of continuous sunlight.

Also, Venus is 0.728213 AU from the sun, compared to Earth’s 1.0 AU. So the sunlight is 1.89 times as intense. So while Earth is getting 1350 W/m^2, Venus is getting 2550 W/m^2.

Combine those two things together, and it’s easy to see why water would boil on Venus, which then forms a cloud deck so thick that the surface can’t cool during the night. Earth’s oceans just would never get to that point, it turns to night and cools before the heat can build up, and it doesn’t get nearly as much heat.

Not long ago i have just finished “The Demon-Haunted World”. I would not have read this book without the influence of your show and community. I strongly recommend this book. It is worth your time.Carl Sagan’s interview

Well for us anyway. O2 used to be a toxic waste product of the metabolism of ocean life.

It’s funny to think we’re breathing cyanobacteria poo.

Maybe future evolution will create lifeforms that breath our wastes?

Maybe it wont even be evolution but us who create these lifeforms to help keep things clean.

Technically if we (i.e. animals and fungi) weren’t here to put CO2 back into the atmosphere, the plants of the world would be CO2 limited and their growth would slow to a crawl. So maybe we’re already half way there, and we just need to find the right balance.

Yeah
It may be so.
Imho sooner or later we will enter transhumanism era. Will it be genetics, nanobots, cyborgs or all together…
What ever tech will be we need to alter our bodies if we want to adopt and survive especially not on Earth.
In a long term.

Hmm, yes I see. I suspect we’ll go to creating closed environment chambers long before we start to alter ourselves. That’s actually the way farming is already going as we go from field farming, to greenhouses, to indoor vertical farms. Each level of control adds more energy costs though, so we’ll ultimately be limited by how much energy we can produce (and how much waste heat we can reject).

I think we’ll know when we’ve reached the point where we’re willing to alter ourselves when we start seeing humans who have been genetically modified to fix our broken vitamin C gene. It would be an easy fix (probably), and could have some interesting benefits (the ultimate end to scurvy).

Yup. Your suggestion is logic and probably wise. But my concerns was more related with peoples who don’t think at all or don’t think that way. Or even simply don’t care at all. Later we usually talking about climate change basically related with carbon dioxide or other harmful gas (greenhouse gas). But there are potentially more dangerous issue. In a short term. For example the largest part of the population of Earth now have a micro plastics particle In their bodies. Not just in the digestive tract but in the blood system as well. Micro hard particles too. This is especially noticeable in large cities. Air pollution, water pollution and food pollution. It’s kind of pollution pyramid where air is on the top then goes drinkable water then food. In a water you now can find even pharmaceutical residues. In a food non-existent in nature chemical compounds. Imho that’s main reason why we alter ourselves sooner than later.

Things like mircoplastics or trace pharmaceuticals could be problematic (we haven’t really had enough time to study them), but think about the problems we had when we didn’t have plastics and medicines. Fecal mater, diseases, and insect egg contamination were common in foods and water supplies. Consider also the alternatives, if we didn’t use plastic, we’d have to wrap foods in tin, aluminium, or glass which are all much heavier and more energy intensive to create. If we didn’t have pharmaceuticals, we’d have a lot more disease and shorter lives.

So even if these pollutants are a problem, they’re frequently not as bad as the alternative. Certainly, we need to work on methods to reduce or counteract these problems, but, even if we never find a good solution, they may still be worth the troubles they cause.

Things like mircoplastics or trace pharmaceuticals could be problematic (we haven’t really had enough time to study them),…

I can’t find right now the links but ill try to find one. Few years ago in London large scale study was done on water quality. In drinkable water “trace” of pharmaceuticals like statins, blood pressure-reducing drugs contraceptives, antibiotics and pain relievers and some others was relatively high. But the main problem was not the trace of them but the their ability to accumulate. Another study was related to diesel internal combustion engine. A correlation has been found between the use of such engines and respiratory disease. And even some influence for cardiovascular disease.
And now look what’s happening with governmental decisions bout fossil fuels. I’m throwing a plastic bottle away and after “10-50” years I’m eating it or my kids will do. Using diesel car because it cheaper…and my kids probably will have respiratory problems because of that or even worse. It drives me crazy, sorry.

Faulx:

So even if these pollutants are a problem, they’re frequently not as bad as the alternative.

It’s not “if”. I think there is a problem. We just can’t comprehend the consequences. Especially when the process takes long time.

Certainly, we need to work on methods to reduce or counteract these problems, but, even if we never find a good solution, they may still be worth the troubles they cause.

It was true some time ago. But today at least in some business(industry) branch it’s not so anymore. Let’s take few examples. How we generate electricity? How works our ships, trains, truks, cars? Can we change it today? Of course we can. That’s where the government should kick in. But seems they are doing an opposite things Some may say “it will cost a lot of more than using old tech.” Yup, maybe. But let me ask You how much does your health cost?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to pretend there isn’t a problem. I just want to point out that we know that without plastic and medicines huge amounts of food would go to waste and people would grow sick, go hungry, and suffer at much higher rates. Humanity lived through that in the past, it wasn’t pretty.

Meanwhile, we’re worrying about unknown risks which may or may not exist or may not be significant. Right now it’s all speculation. Until we can quantify the suffering people would live through because of pollutants vs the suffering from the diseases we’d have without the products that produce these pollutants, it’s hard to decide against creating them. Otherwise, how can we ever expect the known benefits to compete against speculative fears.

simon:

How we generate electricity? How works our ships, trains, truks, cars? Can we change it today? Of course we can.

As I see it, it’s, precisely, this speculative fear which has been keeping us from nuclear power for all these decades. The industry has become so clogged with regulations passed to placate the fearful that it’s been nearly impossible to move forward with this much cleaner and safer technology.

I guess that means I’m saying that the same fear that makes people want to move away from fossil fuels is keeping them from doing so. This fear comes from ignorance, the solution is to educate and foster understanding of new technologies so that people can be comfortable enough to move to new technologies.

I’m so sorry Faulx. I do not appeal personally to you when I’m using “You”. I just wanted to share my boredom and thoughts on that topic. My thoughts semantics is terrible because English isn’t my native language. I apologize in advance.